The Ultimate Lower Body Exercise
The most valuable of the lower body exercises is the leg press. Leg presses come in a variety of styles and feature myriad designs, and thus, some are better than others, but the common elements among all leg presses make them a focal point for lower body training. Here are five elements that make the leg press so important for your next workout.
Biomechanical efficiency. In the most fundamental sense, an exercise is simply a biomechanical (sometimes referred to as kinesiological) action with resistance applied to it. In order to select an exercise, we must first ask what muscles we are attempting to train and then understand the anatomical function of those muscles. For the leg press, we are targeting the glutes, which extend our femur (move our thigh away from us); our quadriceps, which extend our lower leg; and our hamstring, which have a secondary function of hip extension (similar to the glutes). The leg press fits the bill for all three of these movements.
Safety. Traditionally, the most popular lower body exercise has been the barbell squat. However, putting a barbell on top of our back vertically compresses the spinal column. Regardless of our form, this presents an unnecessarily high risk of chronic injury. A leg press avoids this spinal compression while still involving the valuable squatting motion.
Avoiding weak links. In exercises like the squat, the lunge, or the barbell deadlift, weaker muscle groups, including our lower back and grip musculature, limit us from pushing our powerful leg muscles to the point of fatigue, thus limiting the effectiveness of our lower body training. Stated otherwise, we tend to reach failure because our low back or grip gives out before our glutes or quads fatigue.
Functional. Advocates of squats and lunges suggest that standing on the floor while doing an exercise “transfers” to real life, sports, and daily tasks because, well, in real life we stand on the floor. The motor learning research reveals that this “transfer” doesn’t actually exist, and instead, we can just focus on making these muscles as strong as possible in the safest (and most efficient manner possible).
Glutes. Glute training is, well, popular. There is no exercise that targets the muscles of our backside like a well-designed leg press. This might be important for our aesthetic goals (no judgement here), but it’s also critically important as we age into our 70s, 80s, 90s and beyond, as glute strength helps us navigate stairs, rise from a chair, and get on and off of the toilet. In fact, I consider leg press to be nothing short of life-changing for a 90-year- old.
Final note: Do you HAVE to do leg presses? No. A combination of other exercises will still recruit and train these muscles. But no exercise safely and efficiently targets the lower body like the leg press.
